Referendum not mentioned in electoral reform survey
OTTAWA — Days after fumbling the rollout of an all-party report on reforming how Canadians vote, the Liberals are giving citizens 25 days to take part in a lengthy online survey on electoral reform.
The government is launching what it says is the next phase of its study to reform the voting system — a campaign promise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shown signs of backing away from lately — through a new online portal called MyDemocracy.ca.
The Canadian Press has obtained details of the questions the government hopes Canadians will answer as it sends postcards this week to 15 million households giving details about how to participate online or by phone.
The survey comes after last week’s flareup in the House of Commons in which Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef accused Opposition MPs on the electoral reform committee of not doing their jobs.
Monsef later apologized repeatedly, but outrage over her remarks seemed to kneecap any momentum toward finding a new way for Canadians to vote after Trudeau pledged the 2015 election would be the last to use the first-past-the-post system.
Opposition MPs on the committee recommended a new proportional voting system and urged a national referendum to gauge public support for it.
But in this next phase of public consultations, the word referendum does not appear in any of the 31 questions the government plans to ask Canadians.
On separate Sunday television talk shows, two Opposition MPs — who did not appear to know about this new round of public consultation — repeated accusations that the Liberals are trying to create a system that favours the party.
Monsef roundly rejected the criticism in an interview Sunday, saying the government is determined to give as many Canadians as possible a voice on a complicated, but important issue that cuts to the core of their democracy.
The survey asks respondents to rate their level of agreement to 20 “propositions.”
One proposition states: “A ballot should be easy to understand, even if it means voters have fewer options to express their preferences.” Another says: “Voters should be able to express multiple preferences on the ballot, even if this means that it takes longer to count the ballots and announce the election result.”